Chapter 16
Rhett
Knox is already moving, grabbing his coat from the hook before Boone even has the door closed. The floorboards groan under his boots as he strides toward the exit.
“I’ll give him a hand,” Knox says, not looking back. “Two sets of eyes are better than one.”
He vanishes into the night, the wind catching the door and slamming it shut with a heavy thud that seems to echo through the entire house.
Then silence settles over the living room. It’s a strange, heavy silence, filled only by the sound of the rain lashing against the glass and the fire crackling in the hearth.
I stand near the fireplace, gripping the poker until my knuckles turn white. I look at Saramaria.
She’s sitting on the edge of the sofa, exactly where Boone dumped her.
The blanket Boone threw at her is pooled in her lap, forgotten.
She’s staring at her hands, which are folded tightly in her lap, and her wet hair is plastered to her skull, dripping water onto the knees of her shorts.
Her socks are sodden, leaving dark wet patches on the rug beneath her feet.
She’s shaking. Not just shivering, but trembling with a fine, violent vibration that I can see from across the room.
She doesn’t move. She doesn’t speak. For five minutes, maybe ten, we just exist in the same space. The only movement is the rise and fall of her chest and the occasional twitch of her fingers against the blanket.
Finally, she lifts her head. Her eyes are wide, unfocused, darting around the room as if she’s looking for an escape route that isn’t there.
“I’m all dirty,” she whispers. The words are so soft I almost miss them.
“What?” I ask, taking a step closer.
She looks at me, and the look in her eyes makes my chest ache. It’s a look of pure, unadulterated distress.
“Everything is all wrong,” she says, her voice rising an octave. “I’m dirty. The mud... it’s on me. It’s on my socks. It’s everywhere. I can feel it.”
I look at her, at the way she’s picking at the hem of her sweater, her fingers moving frantically. The way she keeps rubbing her palms against her thighs, trying to wipe something away that isn’t there.
She isn’t just cold. She isn’t just upset about the dog. She’s unraveling. The neat, controlled layer she wears like armor is cracking, and underneath is a raw, frantic panic.
I walk over to her and crouch down, bringing myself to eye level. The heat from the fire radiates against my back, but she seems oblivious to it.
“Saramaria,” I keep my voice low, “are you cold?”
She shakes her head. “No. I’m... I’m just gross. I need it off. I need it all off.” She pulls at the neck of her sweater, her breath hitching. “I can’t think. I can’t breathe. The grime is... it’s crawling on me.”
I realize then that this isn’t just about the mud from the yard. It’s about the day. The smoke, the gas from the pumps, the touch of strangers in town, the stress of the papers. It’s a sensory overload that her brain can’t process. She needs a reset.
“Hey,” I say softly. “It’s okay. We’re going to fix this.”
“Boone was right,” she says, tears spilling over her lashes. “I’m going to get sick. I’m going to die out here and no one will care.”
“That’s not true,” I say firmly. “We’re going to find Wellsy. Boone and Knox are out there right now. They won’t come back without him. I promise you that.”
“But I can’t...” She trails off, squeezing her eyes shut. “I just feel so weird. I feel disgusting. I need to shower. I need to scrub.”
I look at the bathroom door down the hall. The power is out. The pump is dead.
“You can’t shower,” I say gently. “There’s no power.”
Her face crumples and she lets out a sound. It’s such a small thing, but it sounds so close to a sob that it punches me in the gut. It shakes me more than the storm outside.
I’ve seen her angry. I’ve seen her cold. I’ve never seen her broken like this.
I reach out and take her cold, wet hands in mine. They’re like ice. I pull her forward, off the sofa and into my arms. She comes without resistance, collapsing against my chest.
“Shh,” I murmur, wrapping my arms around her shivering frame. She’s soaked through, her wet sweater seeping into my shirt, but I don’t care. I run my hand through her wet hair, feeling the tangled strands against my palm.
Fuck. The scent of her is everywhere—vanilla and honey, diluted by rain and fear. It intoxicates me, even while she is falling apart.
“We can fix this,” I say again. “We can get you clean.”
“How?” she mumbles against my chest. “No power.”
“We don’t need power,” I tell her. “We have fire. We have pots.”
She pulls back slightly, looking at me with confusion. “What?”
I keep one arm around her waist and gesture to the hearth with the other. “You think we have electric water heaters out in the barn? We heat water the old-fashioned way. We fill a pot and put it on the stove.”
“You... you boil water?”
“Exactly,” I say. “When we milk the cows, we have to wash the udders and our hands. We can’t use cold water on a full bag; it hurts them and ruins the milk flow. So, we keep a big pot on the wood stove. It stays hot all the time. We use it for washing equipment, for cleaning up.”
I look her in the eye. “I can do that for you. I can get a pot, fill it with water from the reserve, and heat it right here on the fire. It won’t be a shower with fancy pressure, but we can get you warm. We can get you clean.”
She stares at me, processing this. The frantic spinning of her thoughts seems to slow down. Logic is returning.
“A sponge bath?” she asks, her voice small.
“Whatever you need,” I say. “A warm washcloth. Soap. We can fix the dirty feeling.”
She takes a deep, shuddering breath and nods. “Okay. Yeah. Okay.”
“Good,” I say, giving her a gentle squeeze before letting her go. “You sit right here by the fire. Get warm. I’ll be right back.”
I guide her to the rug in front of the hearth. She sits down, pulling her knees to her chest. She wraps the blanket around her shoulders, watching the flames.
I go to the kitchen. In the pantry, I find a large enameled metal pot and carry it to the sink. The pump is manual, thank goodness. I work the handle, the water gushing out into the pot. It’s freezing cold, but it’s clear.
I carry the full pot back to the living room. It’s heavy. I set it on the stone hearth, right in the coals. I stoke the fire, pushing the logs together to create a hotter bed of heat.
Then I sit down on the rug beside her. Not too close—giving her space—but close enough that she can feel my presence.
We sit there, watching the water. It takes a few minutes to even start steaming.
She’s staring into the flames, her eyes wide and glassy. The silence is stretching again, and I can feel the anxiety creeping back into her posture. She is picking at the blanket again.
I need to distract her. I need to get her out of her head.
“So,” I say, keeping my tone conversational. “You’re a lawyer.”
She blinks, looking at me. “What?”
“I’ve known plenty of ranchers and riders,” I say. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually known a lawyer. What’s that like? Is it all yelling ‘objection’ in courtrooms and burying people in paperwork?”
I expect her to talk about contracts or the Denver skyline or the adrenaline of a courtroom win.
Instead, she lets out a short, bitter laugh. She looks down at her hands.
“It’s lonely,” she says softly.
“Lonely?”
She nods. She pulls the blanket tighter. “I work at this firm. Hartman & Ellis. Top tier. I spent eighty hours a week in a building that smelled like lemon polish and arrogance. I thought I had it made.”
She pauses. The fire pops, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney.
“I had a boyfriend,” she continues, her voice flat. “Richard. He was an Alpha. A partner at the firm. He was... everything I thought I wanted. Polished. Successful. He understood the long hours. He understood the ambition.”
I listen, watching her face.
“And I had a best friend. Penelope. She was a paralegal there. We did everything together. Lunch, drinks, movies. She was the sister I never had.”
She turns her head to look at me, and there’s a hollow look in her eyes that scares me. “I was done early and wanted to surprised him. I thought... I don’t know. I thought we could have dinner. Maybe reconnect.
I frown. I have a bad feeling about where this is going.
“I walked into his office,” she says. “He didn’t hear me. He was... occupied. On his knees. Under his desk.”
I stiffen.
“It was Penelope,” she says, her voice cracking. “My best friend. She was leaning back against his desk, holding his head, making these sounds...”
She stops, swallowing hard. “They didn’t even stop when they saw me. He just looked up, with his... his mouth still on her, and he just said, ‘Shit.’ Like I’d walked in on him dropping a stapler.”
I stare at her, shock rippling through me. That is... brutal. It’s a betrayal so deep it cuts to the bone.
“Saramaria,” I say, my voice rough. “That’s... I’m sorry.”
She shrugs, a tear tracking down her cheek.
“That’s the life I built. That’s the ‘success’ I ran away to this ranch to find.
A fiancé who couldn’t keep his dick in his pants, and a best friend who didn’t care about my heart.
Everyone knew. Everyone in that office probably knew.
They were laughing at me while I was billing hours and paying for their dinners. ”
She looks back at the fire. “So, you ask me what being a lawyer is like? It’s realizing that you’re the only one playing by the rules while everyone else is screwing you over.”
I’m speechless. I look at this woman—this fierce, angry, controlling woman—and I see the cracks clearly now. The control isn’t just her shield, it’s who she has had to be for a very long time. It’s a way of protecting herself.
I want to protect her too.
“Can I?” I ask, opening my arms.
She looks at me, her eyes red-rimmed and vulnerable. She hesitates for only a second before she nods.
I shift closer and pull her against my side. She rests her head on my shoulder, her body melting into mine. She’s still shivering, but the panic is subsiding, replaced by a heavy, exhausted sadness.
I hold her, my chin resting on top of her wet head.
“I’m embarrassed,” she whispers into my shirt. “I shouldn’t have told you that. I don’t know why I did.”
“I’m glad you did,” I say honestly. “It explains why you hate us so much.”
She lets out a wet laugh. “I don’t hate you. I just... I don’t trust anyone.”
“Smart,” I say.
I look at the fire, thinking about her story. Thinking about the betrayal. It makes my own past rise up, unbidden.
“I get it,” I say after a while. “More than you know.”
She shifts, looking up at me. “You do?”
I nod. I stare into the flames, seeing a different time. A different house.
“I had a pack once,” I say. The words feel foreign in my mouth. I haven’t spoken about this in years. “Back in Texas. Before I came here.”
“You were part of a pack?” she asks, surprised.
“Yeah,” I say. “I thought it was everything. I was the Prime. The Alpha. We had a house, a business, an Omega named Elara. She was sweet. Or so I thought.”
I feel Saramaria tense against me, but she doesn’t pull away.
“It started small,” I continue. “Little comments. ‘Someone said this,’ or ‘the other Alpha doesn’t respect me.’ She would pit us against each other. Twist our words. Make us compete for her attention.”
I shake my head, remembering the toxicity.
“I lost my taste for it. I realized that the bond, the pack dynamics... it can be beautiful. But it can also be a weapon. She turned us into enemies. We tore each other apart. By the time I realized what she was doing, the pack was broken. The business was gone. And I was gone.”
I look down at Saramaria. Her green eyes are wide, fixed on my face.
“So I came here,” I say. “I decided I was done. No more packs. No more Omegas. Just me. Just the land. Things that make sense. Things that don’t lie.”
She absorbs this, processing the weight of my confession. It explains the distance I keep. It explains why I’m the one who handles the books and the fences and stays out of the emotional fray.
“Until now,” she says quietly.
“Until what?”
“Until me,” she says. “You said you were done. But you’re here. With Knox and Boone. And... with me.”
I let out a breath. “Yeah.”
“Why?” she asks. “Why stay? Why help me? Why give me the papers?”
I look at her. Really look at her. At the smudge of soot on her nose. At the stubborn set of her chin. At the vulnerability she tries so hard to hide.
“Because you threw me off balance,” I admit. “From the second you walked into that clearing with pepper spray. You’re exciting and different and difficult, and you drive me absolutely insane.”
She tries to pull back, offended, but I hold her tight.
“But you’re also real,” I say. “You’re not playing a game. You’re not trying to manipulate us. You’re just... you. Fighting for what’s yours. Trying to survive.”
I pause, deciding to lay the last card on the table. She needs to know. After the night she’s had, after the secrets she’s shared, she deserves the truth.
“I like you, Saramaria,” I say, the words feeling strange but right.
“I know you hate our guts. I know you want to sell this place and send us packing. But you have to know... you drive us all a little crazy. Boone, Knox, me. We’re all walking around here like moths to a flame, and it pisses us off just as much as it terrifies us. ”
She stares at me, her mouth slightly open. The firelight dances in her eyes. She looks shocked.
“You... like me?” she repeats, like she’s never heard the words before. “But I’m a mess. I’m trying to evict you.”
“I know,” I say, a small smile touching my lips. “Like I said. You drive us crazy.”
The water in the pot bubbles, breaking the moment. I reach over and test the side of the pot with my hand. It’s not quite boiling, but warm enough.
I stand up, pulling her with me.
“Come on,” I say gently. “Let’s get you cleaned up. I’ll find a washcloth and some soap. Then we’ll wait for the boys to get back with Wellsy.”
She looks at the pot of steaming water, then back at me. For the first time since I met her, the hard lines of her face soften.
“Okay,” she whispers. “Thank you, Rhett.”
“Don’t mention it,” I say, turning toward the bathroom. “Just... next time you want to burn down the yard, maybe wait until I have my coffee.”
She actually laughs. It’s a small, fragile sound, but it’s real.
I hold on to it.